Affordable Solar Power: Looking Beyond Panels

Lately I’ve been thinking about what I can do to lower our energy consumption at home. We don’t have many appliances, but if there’s a way I can lower my bill and lessen my home’s negative impact on the environment, I’d love to try it. This made me consider using solar energy.

When people think about harnessing solar energy, the first thing that comes to mind are photovoltaic panels — but this is hardly the best choice.

Here’s the problem: First of all, most solar panels are not that environment-friendly. Some use a very rare metal called indium, and if we continue to use indium at our current rate, we’ll only have a 10-year supply of it left.

Using solar panels to power your home can also be impractical. You’ll need several modules or panels to produce a workable amount of electricity, not to mention the space to hold them. Plus, they are just too expensive for the average Filipino consumer.

We have to look at solar energy from a different angle, then.

Solar Ovens

One way to utilize solar energy for your home is to build a solar oven. Basically, these ovens run on nothing but the light and heat of the sun. Here are the advantages of doing this:

• You can’t burn anything. Soft vegetables may overcook though, if left in too long, but this just means they have to be the last thing you’ll add.
• It reduces your LPG or electrical consumption used for cooking, since you’re directly using solar energy to cook.
• It uses less water. Since the cooker is enclosed, moisture is retained in the food, it doesn’t evaporate. Usually, you don’t need to add extra water to your meat or vegetables.
• It’s environment-friendly. No harmful emissions and pollutants result from using this oven for cooking.

Solar ovens also have a few disadvantages.

• It takes longer to cook with a solar oven. This means it’s not a good setup if you’re in a hurry to eat. Because of this, cooking this way is only ideal for lunch, merienda, and dinner (to be reheated later). To shorten cooking time, set up your oven as early as possible and cut your meat, fish, and veggies into small pieces. If you’ll be cooking a lot of food, it’s better to use two or more smaller pots than one large pot.
• Some cookers need to be adjusted to face the sun every half hour or so. But the effort of that is minimal compared to constantly watching your meal on a stove.
• Of course, you can’t cook this way during the evening or cloudy or rainy days.

Here are some additional resources on solar cooking:

• The Wikipedia article on solar cookers provides a good introduction.
• Solar oven do-it-yourself plans from SolarCooking.org. For something large, check out the cob solar oven (PDF). If you want a portable solar oven, try this collapsible one.
• A list of common questions about solar cooking at the solar cooking wiki. (Explore the rest of the wiki. They’ve got a lot of handy instructions there.)
• Some video demos in YouYube:
  • Solar oven pot roast - the guy in this video just used two glass bowls and a large plastic screen.
  • Solar box oven cooking in the winter.  Pretty inspiring. Kung pwede magluto ng roast chicken (at 300+ Fahrenheit) via the sun during winter in Canada, paano pa kaya sa rainy season dito sa Pilipinas?
  • Stewed chicken and cornbread made via a solar oven

Solar cooking is a topic that I’m very, very interested in. By the time I start living in the province, I want to be very good at setting up solar ovens so that I can build them and give them away to my partner’s relatives there. This will lessen their LPG, coal, and other cooking expenses. (I actually made a makeshift oven based on one of the videos above. I’ll be posting about that next week.)

Natural Light

To maximize sunlight and avoid turning on light bulbs during the day, make sure that the high-activity rooms of your house have ample windows and other source of natural lighting. These rooms include the kitchen, a home office, or the dining room. It may sound like common sense, but many people forget this when planning or remodeling their homes.

Here’s an example: I’m in my home office for the greater part of the day, so I need it to be well lighted while I work or read. It’s fortunate that I have a large window on one wall and a sliding glass door on another wall - I never have to turn on a light bulb between 6am to 4pm.

Our kitchen/dining room also maximizes natural light. There are doors on both ends of the room, and both of them have a secondary screen door. Our ceiling also has two skylights made out of the typical translucent plastic “yero”.

If you have the budget,you can try installing tubular light (also known as sun pipes or sun tubes) in your house. I don’t know where to get these locally, though. Frankly, I think the other natural lighting methods I mentioned above should be enough for the typical Filipino home.

How about you? Do you have other frugal ideas on how to use solar energy? Have you tried any of the above methods?

Additional Sources:

• “Renewable Energy Solar Cells Ain’t So Renewable” by Kit Eaton, FastCompany.com

Image by flaivoloka from sxc.hu